46 
The Aralia Family furnishes the Arboretum with three handsome 
trees which flower in late summer and early autumn. They are Acan- 
thopandx ricinifolium, Aralia spinosa and A. chinensis and its varie¬ 
ties. The Acanthopanax is a tree which is common in the forests of 
northern Japan, Korea and China where it is often seventy or eighty 
feet high with a massive trunk and great wide-spreading branches 
armed, like the stems of young trees, with many stout prickles. The 
leaves hang down on long stalks and are nearly circular, five- or seven- 
lobed and often fifteen or sixteen inches in diameter. The small white 
flowers are produced in compact, long-stalked clusters which form a 
flat compound, terminal panicle from twelve to eighteen inches across 
and are followed late in the autumn by shining black fruits which do 
not fall until after the beginning of winter. This tree is perfectly 
hardy in the Arboretum where it has been growing for twenty-four 
years and where it has flowered and ripened its seeds now for several 
. seasons. It is one of the most interesting trees in the collection and, 
because it is so unlike other trees of the northern hemisphere, it is 
often said to resemble a tree of the tropics. Aralia spinosa , the so- 
called Hercules’ Club of the southern states where it is a common in¬ 
habitant of the borders of woods and the banks of streams, is a tree 
often thirty feet high with a tall trunk and wide-spreading branches 
covered with stout orange-colored prickles. The leaves, which are borne 
at the ends of the branches, are long-stalked, twice pinnate, and from 
three to four feet long and two and one-half feet wide. The small 
white flowers are arranged in compound clusters which rise singly or 
two or three together above the leaves and are three or four feet long. 
The fruit is black, rather less than a quarter of an inch in diameter, 
and ripens in early autumn. It is now well established on the slope at 
the northern base of Hemlock Hill in the rear of the Laurel plantation 
and is now spreading rapidly there over a considerable area by shoots 
from underground stems. The Asiatic tree Aralia resembles in habit 
and general appearance the American Hercules’ Club, but is distinct 
from that tree in the absence of stalks to the leaflets. There are a 
number of geographical forms of this tree; the one which is most 
commonly cultivated in this country is a native of Manchuria and east¬ 
ern Siberia (var. mandshurica) which is sometimes found in nurseries 
under the name of Dimorphanthus mandshuricus . The Japanese form 
(var. glabrescens) is chiefly distinguished from it by the pale color of the 
under surface of the leaflets; it is less hardy than the Manchurian 
form and is not often seen in this country. 
Sophora japonica, sometimes called the Pagoda-tree, is in spite of 
its name a Chinese tree which has been cultivated in Japan for more 
than a thousand years, and as it first reached Europe from that country 
was long considered a native of Japan. It is a round-headed tree 
which in Peking, where it has been much planted, has grown to a 
large size and looks from a distance like an Oak-tree. The leaves and 
branchlets are dark green, and the small, creamy white, pea-shaped 
flowers, which open here in August, are produced in great numbers in 
narrow, erect, terminal clusters. There are also in the collection the 
form with long pendent branches (var. pendula) which rarely flowers, 
and a young plant of the form with erect branches (var. pyramidalis). 
